Headlines

HSBC has said it plans to slash about 35,000 jobs as part of a radical downsizing of its operations in Europe and the US, as it warned of the threat to its business from social unrest in Hong Kong and the coronavirus outbreak, the Financial Times reported. The London-based bank said it aimed to cut annual costs by $4.5bn and shed $100bn of assets adjusted for risk by the end of 2022 as it attempts its most drastic overhaul since the financial crisis in an attempt to kick-start its stuttering business. The bank did not publish a headcount reduction targ

Investor sentiment in Germany dropped sharply in February as the effects of the coronavirus outbreak weighed on exporters, a survey revealed, adding to an increasingly gloomy picture for Europe’s biggest economy, the Financial Times reported. The Zew survey of financial market experts found that sentiment about the outlook for the German economy fell 18 points this month to a reading of 8.7. This is well below January’s score of 26.7 and significantly worse than the 21.5 economists in a Reuters poll had been expecting.

UK steel magnate Sanjeev Gupta has completed the acquisition of a bankrupt Indian steelmaker after a long court battle, the first foray by his GFG Alliance into the country’s fast-growing market following previous failed attempts, the Financial Times reported.

South Africa’s rising country risk is putting upward pressure on interest rates, even as inflation expectations decline, with credit-rating companies contributing to the negative sentiment, according to the central bank, Bloomberg News reported. Moody’s Investors Service cut its 2020 economic growth forecast for South Africa to 0.7% from 1% on Monday and said the nation’s relatively high real interest rates are constraining expansion.

Argentina may be in deep financial trouble but its central bank is comfortably back in the black -- thanks to a small accounting maneuver, Bloomberg News reported. A little-noticed decision by policy makers late last year to change the way they value government bond holdings transformed the central bank’s balance sheet overnight, turning what had been a net worth of negative $2 billion into positive $33 billion.

More than 7m Britons are struggling with debt and are at risk of being exploited by some lenders’ business models, according to a new assessment of potential harm to consumers by the UK financial watchdog, the Financial Times reported. The Financial Conduct Authority on Tuesday listed the treatment of over-indebted borrowers, unsuitable pension transfers, and the marketing of high risk investment products as among the greatest risks posed by the financial services industry in 2020.

Indian mutual funds are carving out their investments in troubled Vodafone Idea Ltd.’s debt into separate portfolios as they seek to limit any fallout from a possible default by the telecom carrier, Bloomberg News reported. UTI Mutual Fund and Nippon Life India Asset Management moved to ring-fence their holdings in Vodafone Idea’s debt on Monday after credit assessor Care Ratings Ltd. downgraded the carrier’s borrowings, statements from the companies show. Last month, Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund also segregated the company’s debt.

Renault has been punished for its weak full-year results last week with a downgrade of its credit rating into junk territory by Moody’s, the rating agency, the Financial Times reported. The downgrade of the French carmaker’s debt to Ba1, just below investment grade, “was triggered by Renault’s substantially weakened operating performance reported for the year 2019”, said Moody’s in a statement on Tuesday evening.

India’s top court rejected a plea by mobile carriers seeking more time to settle billions of dollars in back-fees, threatening to push Vodafone Group Plc’s beleaguered local venture to the brink weeks after it warned of a potential collapse, Bloomberg News reported. The Supreme Court’s three-judge panel, headed by Arun Mishra, said Friday that operators including Vodafone Idea Ltd. and Bharti Airtel Ltd. -- owing a total of $13 billion in dues for spectrum and licenses -- must deposit the dues by March 17. Shares of Vodafone Idea plunged.

China’s provinces are facing the economic fallout from the coronavirus with depleted ammunition, given they were already bracing for a deterioration in public finances before the outbreak hit, Bloomberg News reported. More than half of mainland provinces expect slower expansion of revenue in 2020 than last year’s average local income growth, according to their budgets published before the disease outbreak became widespread in January. Hubei, the epicenter, was already expecting income to fall.